Marco Maggi, Language in Residence, 2017. Paper cuts on pong pong ball at IBM Selectric font ball, 3 1/2 x 4 1/8 x 3 in. / 8.9 x 10.5 x 7.6 cm.
MARCO MAGGI (b. 1957, Uruguay)
“Our time is so preoccupied with the spectacle of macro drama that delicacy… has become subversive.”
New York-based Uruguayan artist Marco Maggi takes everyday objects such as photocopy paper, aluminum foil, apples, and parking mirrors as the foundations for his precisely-rendered sculptures and drawings. Using humor, wordplay, and a range of visual allusions, Maggi uses his meticulous processes to explore the relationship between information and knowledge in our contemporary world.
Maggi attended the State University of New York, New Paltz (SUNY), graduating with an MFA in Printmaking in 1998. The medium, he has said, interested him not for its process, but for the way in which it provided a “threshold between two and three dimensions.” This formal interest connects directly to Maggi’s longstanding concern with the variability of knowledge—the way in which overwhelming amounts of information are disseminated flatly, deflecting introspection or focus. By making works that are both subtle and meticulous, Maggi encourages his viewers to slow down and reflect upon each object’s details and intricacies; that act, of slow looking, is a political act that runs counter to the dominant tendency to look quickly and superficially. Myopia, Maggi writes, is the “best answer to globalization… delicacy is a subversive activity and to pay attention is really shocking.”
Describing Maggi’s work, artist and curator Ana Tiscornia writes, “Whether one or a thousand sheets of paper, an apple or a ceramic board, a metal ruler or a piece of Plexiglas, an aluminum roll or a copper sheet; whether he uses a pencil or a scalpel, Marco Maggi always seems to be organizing some kind of coded information. Actually, his intricate marks, formations of diminutive lines, refined drawings, are universes in permanent expansion that connote readings of the illegible, or organized archives of the unfathomable, but they ultimately refer to the ungraspable element in any information.”
Maggi lives and works in New York and Uruguay.
2018 | Marco Maggi - Hosfelt Gallery - San Francisco, San Francisco, CA |
2017 | Galeria Nara Roesler, New York, Theory of the Inevitable Convergence |
| Marco Maggi - Putin´s Pencils - Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX |
| Marco Maggi: Global Myopia (Language in Residence) Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA, US |
| Marco Maggi: The Gold and the Moor, Galeria Nara Roesler, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
2016 | Language Descending a Staircase, East Wing Biennial at Courtauld Art Institute, London, UK |
| Piano Piano, Espacio Monitor, Caracas, Venezuela |
2015 | DEPLOYER, Xippas Gallery, Paris, France |
| Unfolding Marco Maggi, Josee Bienvenu Gallery, New York, NY, USA |
| Sentence with Three Corners, Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Brazil |
| Into Whiter Space, Sayago & Pardon, Los Angeles, CA, USA |
| Global Myopia (Pencil & Paper), 56th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy |
2013 | Fanfold, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, USA |
2012 | Figari Prize XVII, Museo Figari, Montevideo, Uruguay |
| Bienal de Cuenca, Ecuador |
| Turn Left, Xippas Gallery, Paris, France |
| La Menor Idea, Galería Cayón, Madrid, Spain |
| No Idea, MOLAA Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, CA, USA |
| Lentissimo, Vassar College Museum, New York, NY, USA |
| “Desinformação funcional, desenhos em português”, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil |
2011 | Bienal de Cuenca, Ecuador (curated by Agnaldo Faria) |
| Optimismo Radical, NC-Arte, Bogotá, Colombia |
| X-ACTO, Xippas Gallery, Montevideo, Uruguay |
| From Huguenot to Microwave, Dorsky Museum, New Paltz, NY, USA |
2010 | Al calor del pensamiento, Fundacíon Banco Santander, Madrid, Spain |
| Infintesimal, Galería el Paseo, Punta del Este, Uruguay |
| Parking any time, Josée Bienvenu Gallery, New York, NY, USA |
| American Ream, Syracuse University, Palitz Gallery at Lubin House, New York, NY, USA |
| Lentissimo, Vassar Museum, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA |
2009 | American Ream, Warehouse Gallery at Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA |
| Slow Scandal, Point of Contact Gallery, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA |
| Cubic Drops, Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA |
2008 | Slow Politics, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, USA |
| Nara Roesler Gallery, São Paulo, Brazil |
2007 | By disappointment only, Josée Bienvenu Gallery, New York, NY, USA |
| “From a Drawing Standpoint,” Leo Fortuna Gallery, Hudson, NY, USA |
2006 | Off/Fora, 29th Pontevedra Biennial, Pontevedra, Spain |
| Profiles: The Ted Turner Catalog (from CNN to DNA), Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA |
2005 | The Ted Turner Collection, Complete Coverage, Josée Bienvenu Gallery, New York, NY, USA |
| El Papel Del Papel, Centro Colombo Americano, Bogota, Colombia |
| Hotbed e Altre Storie, Vitamin Arte Contemporáneo, Torino, Italy |
| From DNA to CNN, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, USA |
| Video Box (with Ken Solomon), Centro Cultural Reina Sofia, Montevideo, Uruguay |
2004 | Fifth Gwangju Biennial, Korea |
2003 | inCUBAdora, VIII Havana Biennial, Cuba |
| Constructing & Demolishing, Cristinerose, Josée Bienvenu Gallery, New York exPECTACLE, Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA |
| Construcciones & Demoliciones, dibujos en español, Centro Cultural Reina Sofia, Montevideo, Uruguay |
2002 | 25th São Paulo Biennial, São Paulo, Brazil |
| Hotbed Online, Sala Uno, Rome, Italy |
| PreColumbian & PostClintonian, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, USA |
| Micro Macro, DAN Galeria, São Paulo, Brazil |
2001 | Global Myopia, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, USA |
| BITniks, Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA |
2000 | The Pencil Monologues, 123 Watts, New York, NY, USA |
| Hardware vs. Software, Miller & Block Gallery, Boston, MA, USA |
| micro, macro, mArco, Project Room, 123 Watts/ARColorado, Madrid |
1999 | From Freezer to Microwave, Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA |
1998 | Techtonic, 123 Watts, New York, NY, USA |
American Express
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, New York, NY, USA
Dacra, Miami, FL, USA
Daros Latinamerica Collection, Zürich, Switzerland
De Young Museum, San Francisco, CA, USA
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., USA
Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, Indianapolis, IN, USA
Judith Rothschild Foundation, New York, NY, USA
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, USA
Morgan Library and Museum, New York, NY, USA
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, São Paulo, Brazil
Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Los Angeles, CA, USA
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Houston, TX, USA
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, NY, USA
Progressive Corporation, Mayfield Village, OH
San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA, USA
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, USA
Sprint Corporation, Overland Park, KS, USA
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, USA
![Marco Maggi, Growing Squares 3, 4 and 5 colors [Triptych] , 2017. Slide mounts with 35 mm cut papers, 40 x 40 in. each / 101.6 x 101.6 cm.](https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.collageplatform.com.prod/image_cache/1010x580_fit/5ab12bb7a09a72340a8b4568/d17deb45847bbdcfb8c2f3562aced4fc.jpg)
